Texas Death Penalty

Moises Mendoza was convicted of murder in 2005 for killing a Farmersville woman and later burning her body.

Victims and families of the people who died in the 2019 attack offered impact testimonies as trial ends. "I have no more room for hate in my heart," said Yvonne Gonzalez, who lost her parents.

Those housed in the O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville, including such names as Melissa Lucio, have had their lives touched by a particular Catholic order.

Steven Lawayne Nelson was condemned to die by lethal injection for the 2011 killing of 28-year-old Rev. Clinton Dobson. Dobson was beaten, strangled and suffocated with a plastic bag an Arlington church during a robbery.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to delay legal proceedings until Jan. 13 — the day before the committee disbands — even as lawmakers vowed to continue fighting to hear from Roberson.

This is the first time since 2014 that a Texas county has sent more than one person to death row in a single year, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence summoned Roberson to testify about his case, which successfully stayed his October execution with help from the Texas Supreme Court. But the high court says the House overstepped it's authority.

News coverage of Texas death row inmate Robert Roberson's stalled lethal injection raises questions about Texas executing the innocent.

The AG also said he’d make a criminal referral against the lawmaker, who apologized for texting a Court of Criminal Appeals judge about a new trial for the death row inmate.

Leach, one of the driving forces behind the effort to stop Roberson’s execution, later apologized to the judge, who told the lawmaker there were still pending matters before the court.

Texas House members are weighing whether the shaken baby syndrome theory should have been used in convicting Robert Roberson of the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter.

Roberson was scheduled to be executed on Thursday but an unprecedented legal move, a subpoena from the Texas House, saved him from lethal injection. Legislators are investigating why the state’s junk science law has not been applied in Roberson’s case and others on death row.